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Aug 7, 2009, 10:37 PM - Fettpride Does something new and different !#1

Hi Everyone,

First, I want to say thank you to everyone for their patience in the recent month. You've all been wonderful seeing me thru everything I've been up to.

Let me assure those that I've not tied recent business up with, that THIS is NOT where the delay came from. It was that dreaded ESB Holster project that threw everything off.

So, while babysitting the holsters as they cooked (so time intensive/need to be baby sat) I got a wild hair to do something different, for "me"

I've not stretched my creative legs in quite some time, as most of you know the last couple of years have not been good for me/us. So the motivation, and quite frankly the "love" of making props was fading fast. Until this. I feel rejuvenated.

The best part of all of this is this. In 2008 I was blessed to be a part of the "Jeremy Bulloch" project. To think back when I was 5, or 11 .. and not know that one day I would help make a suit for this "icon" we grew up with - just WOW !. I still get a buz from that. Another opportunity may have arisen.

Most of you know him as "the Droid Wrangler". Don Bies. The man responsible for R2-D2 from '86 to present. I've been lucky enough to be able to communicate with him about his hand in Episode III when he made the mask you are about to see me building a replica of - over at the RPF. He was kind and gracious enough to chime in and share everything he can remember about this project. As any of you well know, it would be a dream come true for most of us if we could have a sit down with Joe Johnston wouldn't it? Well - same thing here for me. Mr. Bies is one of my secret heros. He even shared "bench" pictures of him building this thing So he doesn't know it yet, but I may try to squeeze one of these into his private collection if he feels it a "worthy" representation of his original work. Those of you that cross over to the RPF, I would appreciate your discretion in regards to this. He hasn't seen these pictures yet. I wouldn't want his constructive criticisms to be clouded by any of this

I should add, that this is not entirely my fault One of our own members here at TDH sparked this "wild hair" in me when he purchased a casting of the following "outer shell". He's been such a great friend, that I decided a hollow shell wasn't good enough for him. So I got the idea to do it up dandy for him. One thing led to another .. and Mr. Bies became involved in his own way. So Jason (Darthmiller) - thanks a helluva lot brother ! It's all YOUR fault I'm in this mess. But what a wonderful mess it is. And thank you bro for all your patience too.

Sorry the pics are later than I wanted them to be. I finally just had to set aside everything else I was working on. I don't want this thread to die.

So I slapped what pieces I had laying around for this project into a casting to show that I'm dead bone serious about this thing. I wish I could have painted the pieces but just too short on time. Keep in mind that everything is just thrown in there in a rush. It's just to illustrate some of what I have done on this. There are quite a few more pieces, but they weren't presentable for the purpose of showing off. Maybe the primers will accentuate what's going on in there. Speaking of, I didn't pop in the right eye assembly so you can see what's up underneath.

As you might be able to see, I'm going for a true "replica", not a reasonable facsimile. But of course, it's not perfect. There is only one that is, and that's the original. So we can only do our best with what we have. And it's certainly NOT 3 dimensional reference unfortunately. I've never even seen this thing in person. I missed it when it was at a "Where Science Meets Imagination" close to me, and I kick myself for that every time I look at this thing.

There are some pieces that have since been modified a bit since Mr. Bies shared his pics with us. Oh, and the contacts were already re-worked as I wasn't happy with the first versions you see here.

They say that "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery". My little homage to you, Mr. Bies .. please be kind

Best,

Chris

A couple of important notes that I didn't touch on earlier.

Everything is scaled as well as humanly possible to the few "found" parts that we have. It's nice because there was one small "found" tid bit in every section that allowed the scaling. Will it be dead on accurate? Absolutely not. There is no way it could be. WIth pictures as our only reference, I'm sure you know that it's a judgement call in the end because perspectives get whacked out of proportion due to focal length, ect, ect.

Everything is a little rough in appearance - this is because on most pieces I have not done the finish work as of yet. Ya know, making them "beautiful" as Ivo likes to say So pay no attention to the scratch marks here and there (especially in the mouth cage), or the pinholes. It will indeed be "beautiful" when complete.

I must reiterate what I said in my picture post - some of the parts you see, are not the recent final versions that I've made. Some of these parts are in their 4th generation already. The "nose" for instance - I wanted the nose to be cast-able. So the version in the pics is designed without the undercut between the inner and outer "tubes". the most recent version, has the undercut to look more authentic. It will be a grip to cast, but oh well. But it couldn't make it to picture day as some of the other cool parts that are already done. Same for the mouth "comb" shaped piece. The one pictures is lop sided. The "real" one is sitting in silicone.

Last, but not least - there are no milled, machined, or laser cut parts shown. Everything you see was hand cut (oh, you can tell I'm sure ). But it will even out in the wash when the finish work is done.

Holy balls!!!!!!!!!!!!! Talk about intricate!!!!!!!!!!! Thats some build up you have going on there!!!! Very impressive!! I'm glad you're taking time to finally have some fun, & do something you are excited about...You've earned it!! More pics!!
D

I just had a flashback to building models as a kid. Skipping some of the parts of the engine because there were so many, and how I would get all the way to installing the windshield and get model glue right in the middle of it. So I tip my hat to you sir because you have got some skills.

That is a work of art! Man .. if I lived in Oregon I would pay you money for you to teach me what you know. Again great work. It must have taken you a lot of babysittin hours to figure out how to fit everything together.

Someone asked about cutting the pieces. All I can say is - sheet styrene, scalpel, a hundred or so blades as the tips break every 5 minutes or less Everything you see in there is hand cut, with the exception of the few little found model kit pieces and of course the tiny little torx head screws (which came from hard drives too).

The forehead "spoon" was the most difficult. They're not round holes. And there is depth to that piece on the original. There is no human way to make this piece with that kind of depth by hand unless you get creative. The original appears to be upwards of 1/4 inch thick. So to do this by hand, I designed one side, in one layer, and then reproduced that single half layer 10 times. With those 10 layers, half of them flipped to produce the other side. When all layers were applied, you have a piece that looks nearly laser cut because the depth of each hole is true all the way through, and of course symmetrical hole positions on the opposite side. I have yet to add the little greeblie to cover up the seam. I suspect that Don's was done in "halves" because of the placement of the greeblies down the middle. I'm sure he can confirm or deny, but it's just a hunch

The first rule of thumb on this project was to design pieces in a particular order. If you don't make the right piece first, everything else is "off". So I had to really think about a systematic approach. The mouth cage had to be first obviously. But not work up from there. The forehead had to be next, then filling in the middle to match everything up.

The hard drive reader you see in the pics is "sterilized" for casting purposes. From the side, you can see two of it's 3 arms, the recess between them is filled but an undercut was left to simulate separate arms. The third arm was omitted because you really just can't see it anyway. The idea was a cheaper alternative to hunting down a WD 1020ba hard drive (Which I discovered BTW). But I plan to use an original for my own of course. You might as well use it if you got it :ohbaby

Actually, I really and truly hadn't put too much thought in it. But sure. The funny thing about this mask when I started is that I knew it's a "red headed step child" in the Star Wars world. No one likes it but me it seems Oh and Darthmiller of course. So I never really considered it because of the severe lack of interest in this piece of movie history. So it started as a purely creative endeavor. Whatever it leads to - is whatever it leads to But don't be fooled into thinking it's going to be an easy thing to do. Not a whole lot of materials involved (with the excpetion of the accurate ROTS facemask) but casting these parts will be tedious.

What a great opportunity too. Don is an AWESOME guy. Totally grounded and easy to talk to. Stormtrooperguy and a few other friends were fortunate to hook up with Don on a trip to California a few years ago. He suggested a local restuarant and met us there just to chill and talk nerd talk. Same thing when he was here in Boston for the old Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination exhibit. He hung with us Droid nerds. Great, great guy.

I remember that ! What an awesome trip that must have been. If I remember right, you guys got to go to the "Ranch" too !

I met Don at CIII actually. We chit chatted for a bit but he was in charge of the prop exhibit so he had to take care of biz. But from the short amount of time I had with him I could tell he was just an awesome guy !

And a couple of people have already asked about what kind of "shell" this is going in. I made the accurate ROTS 3 piece helmet years ago but some may not remember it. As I already said, there has just never been enough interest in this piece, but I should have already posted a pic of it for those that have no clue what's going on - on the outside Here is what the interior contents fit into :

I love the inside of it, especially the tiny little thingies around the eye lenses.

hm... i don' t want to intrude here on this topic, but is there any news on the gaunts I ordered? I believe you had mailed them, but I haven' t seen em yet. I couldn' t PM you because your box was full...